Fresh, relevant and well-written content is still marketing gold. Clearly Facebook understood and respected this when they launched their Facebook Subscribe button, which lets readers view a user’s public content rather than having to add them as friends. This doesn’t affect pages/groups so much as it affects people.

I know quite a few business owners that have several businesses and don’t want to manage multiple Facebook pages; they would rather have one umbrella to do that under, especially when they’re doing it all themselves. They now can without giving away their privacy.

On the same note, there are businesses who have seen limited Facebook page growth but noticed an increased interest in their private profile pages; people recognized them more than their business or brand. These people, whether they’ve wanted to or not, have become their brands. If this is you, my advice is to embrace it.

With Facebook’s subscribe button, popular business owners no longer have to accept/reject unwanted/unknown friends and potentially miss out on valuable marketing opportunities to cast their net even wider. This also works great if your public persona has caused you to hit a friend ceiling, thereby limiting how many new people you can bring on board to your profile. Business owners that have created brand loyalty and/or a customer following through their own personality can really reap the benefits from this new shift.

Prior to this new development, Facebook was known for segregating groups and contacts. They were forced to up their game when Google+ emerged onto the scene and shifted the way people keep in touch by allowing users to ‘circle’ anyone they wanted to keep up with. While Google+ is now non-exclusive and boasting millions of users, Facebook is still king of social media, which means that it’s the source for marketers.

If you’re on board, make sure you’re first allowing others to subscribe to you by adjusting your Facebook settings. To manage people you’re subscribing to, go to “subscribers” under your default photo, click “friend subscribers,” and manage who you do/don’t want to follow.

And on a final note, this marketing strategy can and should be flipped. It’s not just about who’s going to subscribe to you, but about who you’re going to subscribe to. You should be following your competition, especially if their brands are based on their persona. This way you don’t have to be “friends” but you can still keep up with what they’re doing, what marketing efforts they’re taking, what conversations they’re starting and what content they’re creating and curating.